Our current cordova angular 1 app has deep linking. All the asset files and stuff are already setup.
One of our apps just opens the app if a link is clicked.
Another of our apps does actually try to route to a page in our app.

Ionic seems like it had a plugin but its not maintained and left Branch.io to do it. Seems like you have to pay for that?

Does Ionic still support deeplinking without branch.io plugin?
The easy app is really just config.xml settings but also setting up the mobile linking/permissions.

For Android I guess because its doing things the old way, clicking a link the user is prompted if they want to go to the app or to a web page. The Universal Link cordova plugin doesn’t do this it takes the user straight to the app.

For Apple I can’t get this working at all. Mostly because Universal Links now need the App ID of the app (like I show in the config.xml above). Clicking the deep link on the iphone just follows the links and takes the user to app store. Does not take it the user to the app I have pushed to the phone.

Options. 1. Get the cordova-universal-links-plugin working.
Option 2. rely on a third party site to get this working. (shame on Ionic for pushing people this way).

Option 3 is really option 1 getting it working with ionic. I would love to do that, but no time right now.

I do see your point. I can see if people are starting from scratch branch.io can make it easier.
When there are already existing cordova plugins that work. I would think keeping that option available would be helpful also.